Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) (reference 1) have emerged as attractive materials for a remarkably wide range of potential applications, including chemical separations (reference 2), size-selective molecular catalysis (reference 3), and chemical fuel storage and release (reference 4). Among the material properties favoring these particular applications are permanent microporosity and large internal surface areas. Unfortunately, the surface areas attained experimentally are often less than anticipated from computational studies or single-crystal X-ray structural studies (reference 5). Furthermore, they can differ substantially from laboratory to laboratory. The disparities and discrepancies have most often been attributed to channel collapse upon solvent removal or channel blockage due to solvent retention (reference 6). In many instances, porosity can be recovered and surface areas can be increased by exchanging the MOF-incorporated solvent remaining from synthesis (referred to later herein as occluded reaction solvent) for a lower boiling point solvent and then removing the solvent under relatively mild conditions (reference 7). Nevertheless, applicants have noted that the liquid solvent exchange strategy still occasionally fails to elicit MOF microporosity or, more commonly, succeeds in enabling access to the internal surface area of a given MOF, but to a lesser extent than anticipated from computations.